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AFBF’s 26th annual infor­mal price sur­vey of clas­sic items found on the Thanks­giv­ing Day din­ner table indi­cates the aver­age cost of this year’s feast for 10 is $49.20, a $5.73 price increase from last year’s aver­age of $43.47.

“The cost of this year’s meal remains a bar­gain, at just under $5 per per­son,” said AFBF Pres­i­dent Bob Stall­man, a rice and cat­tle pro­ducer from Texas. “The qual­ity and vari­ety of food pro­duced for our din­ner tables on America’s diverse farms and ranches sets us apart from our con­tem­po­raries around the world. It is an honor for our farm and ranch fam­i­lies to pro­duce the food from our nation’s land for fam­ily Thanks­giv­ing celebrations.”

The AFBF sur­vey shop­ping list includes turkey, bread stuff­ing, sweet pota­toes, rolls with but­ter, peas, cran­ber­ries, a rel­ish tray of car­rots and cel­ery, pump­kin pie with whipped cream, and bev­er­ages of cof­fee and milk, all in quan­ti­ties suf­fi­cient to serve a fam­ily of 10. There is also plenty for leftovers.

The big ticket item – a 16-pound turkey – came in at $21.57 this year. That was roughly $1.35 per pound, an increase of about 25 cents per pound, or a total of $3.91 per whole turkey, com­pared to 2010. The whole bird was the biggest con­trib­u­tor to the final total, show­ing the largest price increase com­pared to last year.

“Turkey prices are higher this year pri­mar­ily due to strong con­sumer demand both here in the U.S. and glob­ally,” said John Ander­son, an AFBF senior economist.

In addi­tion, “the era of gro­cers hold­ing the line on retail food cost increases is basi­cally over,” Ander­son explained. “Retail­ers are being more aggres­sive about pass­ing on higher costs for ship­ping, pro­cess­ing and stor­ing food to con­sumers, although turkeys may still be fea­tured in spe­cial sales and pro­mo­tions close to Thanksgiving.

A gal­lon of whole milk increased in price by 42 cents per gal­lon, to $3.66. Other items that showed a price increase from last year were: a 30-ounce can of pump­kin pie mix, $3.03, up 41 cents; two nine-inch pie shells, $2.52, up 6 cents; a ½ pint of whip­ping cream, $1.96, up 26 cents; one pound of green peas, $1.68, up 24 cents; a 14-ounce pack­age of cubed bread stuff­ing, $2.88, up 24 cents; a dozen brown-n-serve rolls, $2.30, up 18 cents; three pounds of sweet pota­toes, $3.26, up 7 cents; and fresh cran­ber­ries, $2.48, up 7 cents.

A one-pound rel­ish tray of car­rots and cel­ery declined by a penny to 76 cents, while a com­bined group of mis­cel­la­neous items, includ­ing cof­fee and ingre­di­ents nec­es­sary to pre­pare the meal (onions, eggs, sugar, flour, evap­o­rated milk and but­ter) decreased in price, to $3.10.

“Demand for U.S. dairy prod­ucts has been strong through­out the year and con­tin­ues to influ­ence retail prices, as demand for higher-quality food prod­ucts grows glob­ally,” Ander­son said.

He noted that despite retail price increases dur­ing the last year or so, Amer­i­can con­sumers have enjoyed rel­a­tively sta­ble food costs over the years, par­tic­u­larly when adjusted for inflation.

The 13 per­cent increase in the national aver­age cost reported this year by Farm Bureau for a clas­sic Thanks­giv­ing din­ner is some­what higher but still tracks closely with the organization’s 2011 quar­terly mar­ket­bas­ket food sur­veys and the fed­eral government’s Con­sumer Price Index for food (avail­able online at http://data.bls.gov/) .

Farm Bureau vol­un­teer shop­pers are asked to look for the best pos­si­ble prices, with­out tak­ing advan­tage of spe­cial pro­mo­tional coupons or pur­chase deals, such as spend­ing $50 and receiv­ing a free turkey. Shop­pers with an eye for bar­gains in all areas of the coun­try should be able to pur­chase indi­vid­ual menu items at prices com­pa­ra­ble to the Farm Bureau sur­vey aver­ages. Another option for busy fam­i­lies with­out a lot of time to cook is ready-to-eat Thanks­giv­ing meals for up to 10 peo­ple, with all the trim­mings, which are avail­able at many super­mar­kets and take-out restau­rants for around $50 to $75.

The AFBF sur­vey was first con­ducted in 1986. While Farm Bureau does not make any sci­en­tific claims about the data, it is an infor­mal gauge of price trends around the nation.

A total of 141 vol­un­teer shop­pers from 35 states par­tic­i­pated in this year’s sur­vey. Farm Bureau’s sur­vey menu has remained unchanged since 1986 to allow for con­sis­tent price comparisons.

Please note: Included are tables with his­tor­i­cal infor­ma­tion about AFBF’s Thanks­giv­ing Din­ner survey.